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Contraceptive Coverage for Women in the Military

“We owe female service members the same access to contraception and family planning services as the women they fight to protect,” said Representative Jackie Speier of California, summing up the principle behind a bill she and another Democrat, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, introduced on Wednesday.

Their modest but important measure — the Access to Contraception for Women Servicemembers and Dependents Act of 2015 — would bring contraceptive coverage in the military into line with the coverage afforded to civilian federal employees and required in most health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act.

Specifically, the legislation would make the full range of F.D.A.–approved contraceptive methods available with no co-pay to the millions of women who rely on the military for their health care, including dependents.
While active-duty military currently have no cost-sharing for prescriptions, service members not on active duty and dependents must pay a portion of the cost of birth control obtained outside a military treatment facility.

The bill would also improve access to emergency contraception for survivors of sexual assault and the quality and accessibility of family planning counseling services. And it would require military health facilities to stock “a broad range” of contraception methods.

As yet, the military contraception initiative has no Republican sponsor. The fact is that the fierce opposition to abortion rights on the part of most Republican lawmakers also extends to affording women easy access to the full range of contraceptives.

The question now for the Republicans who control Congress is whether their party’s antipathy to supporting contraception access extends to disrespecting the contributions and sacrifices of women serving their country in the military.